90-Day Geisha: My Time as a Tokyo Hostess

The hard-drinking, drug-taking, all-night culture that dominates Tokyo's Roppongi district can be a surreal place. Overworked Japanese business men will pay handsomely for the services of a hostess--someone to talk to, someone to provide hot towels and drinks, and sometimes just a companion with whom to sing karaoke with all night. Intrigued by rumors of this strange subculture and armed with her 90-day work visa and new husband, Matt, Chelsea throws herself into the lion's den. Yet what she discovers about herself and about the inhabitants of this nocturnal life far exceeds her expectations.

Hostessing, she comes to find, has "very little to do with sex, quite a lot to do with psychology, and nothing to do with prostitution." Her personality and conversation skills are her top commodity, and Chelsea quickly finds herself charmed by these billionaire men, many of whom are funny, intelligent, even kind, and often, very lonely. But as she becomes more and more attached to her clients, Chelsea soon finds herself getting burned at her own game, as the endless presents, compliments, and destructive atmosphere of alcohol and drugs threaten to take both her marriage, and her sanity, to the edge.

"Haywood, a Canadian model who was 20 when the events of this book occurred, reassured herself and her husband, Matt, that working as a Tokyo hostess in an upscale Roppongi bar was more akin to being a geisha than a prostitute. Once she got the temporary but full-time job as hostess at Greengrass, all she had to do was look hot in a dress and heels, keep the rich customers drinking, make conversation and occasionally sing karaoke, all for a couple hundred dollars a night. Or so she thought. As she quickly learned, she had to be popular with the clients by building relationships, going on dohans, or dates, outside the club, and generally being at her favorites' beck and call. Some of the clients got pretty weird, such as the importunate, chatty surgeon Nori, who took the author on extravagant shopping sprees in the hope that she would love him, and the dangerously morose, cocaine-fueled Yoshi, the scion of a Japanese entertainment empire whose jaded diffidence Haywood began to fall for. Gradually, the mollifying of lonely older men's egos began to grate on the author, and she succumbed to a punishing routine of drink, drugs and late nights, rarely spending time with her husband (he also worked at a club), while declaring that Matt was 'completely supportive.' Haywood's sulky pose at decadence is not quite convincing." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

An extremely entertaining debut book. She neatly hooks the reader, teasing us through her adventures in the oh-so-different cultures of urban Japan. Chelsea is wise beyond her years.Hilarious and fast-paced, this is a book you never want to end.Starred Review. Like Karin Muller"s Japanlandand Lea Jacobson"s Bar Flower, Haywood"s candid, lively debut celebrates the cultural complexities of modern-day Japan.

An introspective journey into the glamorous world--and temptations--of Japanese nightlife, by former model Chelsea Haywood.

Chelsea Haywood was born in British Columbia and has traveled independently and as a fashion model since she was 16 years old, and has been featured in magazines, on catwalks, and television throughout Asia. She splits her time between London and Vancouver.